Grrr
Some things annoy me, you might have noticed this. First today there's the 'How Stupid Are You?' Facebook application, which told me this:
You're an idiot! The word "idiot" is derived from a Latin word meaning "uneducated", and that's most likely what you are. But hey, some of the richest, most powerful people in history have been idiots... and maybe, just maybe, it's because we're all idiots? Nonetheless, you've earned this label, buddy. Come to terms with it or start studyin'.
It's not the labelling me as an idiot that was the problem (that's kind of the point of the application). It's the *completely wrong* etymology of 'idiot' that they give. For everyone's information, 'idiot' comes from a Greek word that means 'someone who does not take part in the political life of the state and stays at home all the time not caring about important state issues' (and later goes on to acquire a meaning of stupid, because of behaving like this).
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The other thing that's annoying me is the demise of 'whom', the form of the word 'who' that is used in the accusative and other cases. We should start with a disclaimer here - yes, of course formal case is a bit of an archaism these days, because almost all words do not change form in different cases (i.e. functional cases). It's not that I want 'whom' to stay on because it's 'correct', I want it to stay on because I like it.
In recent weeks I've been noticing that, in the Telegraph (a newspaper we tend to expect to be quite formal!), 'whom' is frequently becoming replaced by 'who'. It seems sad to me, that's all :/
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OK, ranting over. Feel free to take a shot at me for liking old fashioned grammar. I know it's very much the rage these days to advocate linguistic change and therefore say that anything you make up is acceptable if it is used by enough people, but think of me as a sort of impotent Academie Francaise :)
You're an idiot! The word "idiot" is derived from a Latin word meaning "uneducated", and that's most likely what you are. But hey, some of the richest, most powerful people in history have been idiots... and maybe, just maybe, it's because we're all idiots? Nonetheless, you've earned this label, buddy. Come to terms with it or start studyin'.
It's not the labelling me as an idiot that was the problem (that's kind of the point of the application). It's the *completely wrong* etymology of 'idiot' that they give. For everyone's information, 'idiot' comes from a Greek word that means 'someone who does not take part in the political life of the state and stays at home all the time not caring about important state issues' (and later goes on to acquire a meaning of stupid, because of behaving like this).
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The other thing that's annoying me is the demise of 'whom', the form of the word 'who' that is used in the accusative and other cases. We should start with a disclaimer here - yes, of course formal case is a bit of an archaism these days, because almost all words do not change form in different cases (i.e. functional cases). It's not that I want 'whom' to stay on because it's 'correct', I want it to stay on because I like it.
In recent weeks I've been noticing that, in the Telegraph (a newspaper we tend to expect to be quite formal!), 'whom' is frequently becoming replaced by 'who'. It seems sad to me, that's all :/
---
OK, ranting over. Feel free to take a shot at me for liking old fashioned grammar. I know it's very much the rage these days to advocate linguistic change and therefore say that anything you make up is acceptable if it is used by enough people, but think of me as a sort of impotent Academie Francaise :)